The Colony Writes Itself: The Mnemonic Turn in Australian Critical Realism

Part 3 of Faces of Contemporary Realism

At a talk a few years ago at Hunter College in New York, I watched Peter Carey explain to the audience that people were “always asking” him: “Peter, when are you gonna write your aboriginal novel?”

While I have my doubts as to the number of voices in that particular chorus, Carey obliged, and gave the world A Long Way Home. The novel concentrates on a mi…